Crises don’t discriminate. Whether they are economic, geopolitical, technological or environmental, you can expect to have to deal with a major one soon. And how well you minimize the impact of that crisis is the difference between achieving your business objectives, and completely missing them, disappointing your customers, employees, partners, and shareholders in the process. Lucky for you (if you believe in luck and not the probability of chance events), Forrester’s risk experts have updated The Governance, Risk, And Compliance Playbook For 2016. I also recently finished a series of reports on the state of business continuity (which I have creatively named part 1, part 2, and part 3) to give you a jump start on your GRC efforts. Below, I’ve highlighted some of our most recent and exciting GRC research:

Aug. 29, 2015 marked the 10-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. During the storm and the ensuing chaos, 1800 people lost their lives in New Orleans and across the Gulf Coast. Many of these deaths, as well as the extensive destruction, could have been avoided or minimized if there had been better planning and preparedness in anticipation of just such an event, and if there had been much better communication and collaboration throughout the crisis as it unfolded. Responsibility falls on many from government officials (at every level) to hospitals to businesses to individuals. If there is any silver lining to such a destructive event, it’s that it forced many in the US to be much better prepared for the next major catastrophe. Case in point, in October 2012, Superstorm Sandy barreled through the Caribbean and the eastern US, affecting almost half of the states in the US. The storm caused unprecedented flooding and left millions without access to basic infrastructure and thousands without homes, but this time, about 200 people across 24 states lost their lives.

My esteemed colleagues Renee Murphy and Nick Hayes joined me in a fully collaborative, marathon evaluation of 19 of the most relevant GRC platform vendors; we diligently pored through vendor briefings, online demos, customer reference surveys and interviews, access to our own demo environment of each vendor’s product, and as per Forrester policy, multiple rounds of fact checking and review. The sheer amount of data we collected is incredible.

Outside of Tempe is a place called Sahuarita, Arizona. Sahuarita is the home of Air Force Silo #571-7 where a Titan missile, that was part of the US missile defense system and had a nine-megaton warhead that was at the ready for 25 years, should the United States need to retaliate against a Soviet nuclear attack. This missile could create a fireball two miles wide, contaminate everything within 900 square miles, hit its target in 35 minutes, and nothing in the current US nuclear arsenal comes close to its power. What kept it secure for 25 years? You guessed it...four phones, two doors, a scrap of paper, and a lighter.

Photo Credit: Renee Murphy

Technology has grown by leaps and bounds since the cold war. When these siloes went into service, a crew supplied by the Air Force manned them. These men and women were responsible for ensuring the security and availability of the missile. Because there was no voice recognition, retinal scanning, biometric readers, and hard or soft tokens, the controls that were in place were almost entirely physical controls. All of the technology that we think of as keeping our data and data centers secure hadn’t been developed yet. It is important to note that there was never a breach. Ever.

It might be an occupational hazard, but I can relate almost anything to security and risk management, and my visit to the Titan Missile Museum at AF Silo #571-7 was no exception. The lesson I took from my visit: there's room for manual controls in security and risk management.

I’m proud to announce that this week Forrester launched our Governance, Risk, and Compliance Playbook, a collection of in-depth reports covering the critical information you need to implement a successful GRC program… one that focuses on supporting business success, not getting in its way.

Chris and I recently published a report describing how to build risk and compliance principles into your company’s corporate culture. As we worked to finalize, edit, and publish the report, a flurry of new corporate scandals emerged, all related to this topic.